Garden Planner, Dec. 21

Dec. 20, 2013

Written by

Stephanie Bruner

Special to the Register

This week

• Don’t forget to keep checking stored bulbs. Discard any that are shriveled and dry or those that are rotten and mushy. If you find a small mushy area on a bulb, you can cut it off and let the bulb dry for a couple of days before returning it to your storage box.

• Speaking of checking things, if you stored potatoes or apples over the winter, check to see if any have soft spots. Remove those immediately, as they’ll cause nearby produce to rot, as well.

• It’s not too early to start planning next year’s plantings — garden catalogs are already beginning to arrive, so start making lists.

Plan to order early, in January or February, especially if you are ordering something new and unique — the selection is best if you don’t wait until later in the spring.

This month

• Use sand, fireplace ash, kitty litter or chicken grit (granite chips, available from a feed store) for traction around plants. Limit salt and deicers as much as you can — they are hard on plant roots.

• Dry, brown edges on the leaves of houseplants likely indicate that the plants aren’t getting enough humidity — this can happen even if you’re keeping the soil in the container moist.

Try running a humidifier, or set several containers on a tray filled with pebbles, then pour water over the pebbles. You don’t want the base of the container sitting down in the water, as this can cause the roots to rot. But allowing moisture to evaporate around the plant will create a little pocket of moister air.

Stephanie Bruner is a freelance writer from Des Moines who has a degree in horticulture.